Orpheum Theatre

15 W. Aspen Avenue,

Flagstaff,
AZ86011

This brief article from the Arizona Daily Sun of December 10, 2015, is about the Orpheum, with a slide show of five photos. The house was built by John Weatherford of the adjacent Weatherford’s Hotel in 1911, and operated as the Majestic Opera House. The house was listed as the Majestic Theatre in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.

In late December, 1915, a storm dropped some sixty inches of snow on Flagstaff. A maintenance man, thinking to melt away some of the snow and reduce the weight on the theater’s roof, sprayed it with water, precipitating its collapse on New Year’s Eve. The house was eventually rebuilt and reopened as the Orpheum Theatre.

The Orpheum was listed in the FDY through 1929, but in 1930 began being listed as the College Theatre. In 1933 the name Orpheum was restored.

FLAGSTAFF-Northern Arizona Theaters has closed the Orpheum here until about the first of the year to permit extensive remodeling. Clarence Shartzer, manager, said the work would cost about $100,000.

An addition which would increase the capacity to more than 1,000 persons was largely built before the Orpheum closed. Further improvements will include a new floor, new stage, pushback seats, new projection and sound equipment, an enlarged foyer and a new front.

Neat looking building. We can assume the original Orpheum name built into the brickwork is safely behind that newer facade.

The Orpheum’s website history though, doesn’t say when the newer facade was installed. Obviously before the 1973 photo. Maybe late 50's early60’s given the style?

Looks like their band schedule is a little thin as of now. I thought maybe The Misfits was a screening of the 1960 Gable/Monroe film, set in a Western town. The skull logo though solved that.
Not far off though, as The Misfits was easily one of the most depressing films I’d ever seen.

I have visited AZ in past years…Scottsdale, Phoenix, Sedona, Tucson, Grand Canyon, but would entertain the thought of returning again in the near future to visit your “busy little town” of Flagstaff and this time to check out the many theatres especially the Orpheum in Phoenix as it is atmospheric.

A personal recollection: on the way back to Rhode Island after a cross-country drive in 1973, I spent the night in Flagstaff. The Clint Eastwood movie “High Plains Drifter” was playing at the Orpheum on July 5th and I went to see it in this very nice little theatre, not far from my motel.

The Orpheum is currently for sale and has been on the market for over a year. It has been a working movie theater, owned by the Wehrenburg Theater Co. of St. Louis, up until the mid to late Nineties. It is in fair condition but the projectors have been removed. It’s future as a movie palace is in question. The city does consider it a historical building and would never allow it to be destroyed however.